


The Swear Filter

by RockyMountainRattlesnake



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Broken TARDIS, Gen, Humor, Silly, Swear Filter, Swearing, but on purpose for once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 06:22:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21031664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RockyMountainRattlesnake/pseuds/RockyMountainRattlesnake
Summary: The TARDIS has a swear filter.The Doctor's sick and tired of it.





	The Swear Filter

**Author's Note:**

> I swear a lot, in my fanfics. I swear a lot in the prose and the characters swear a lot. So this is essentially a prologue to basically every fic I write in this fandom. Please enjoy this rambling ball of silliness, by way of an explanation for everyone's hilariously foul mouth.

“Faaaaark.”

The Doctor shook his head, grunting and loosening the bolt.

“Again.” He growled.

“Fffffuuuu-dge.” Jack tried, face screwed up with concentration.

“Well, that’s the ‘uhh’ sound, so we’re getting close…” the Doctor muttered, blue eyes narrowing.

“Again, Doc?” Jack asked, leaning over the hole in the grating.

“Not yet. Need to…hammer.” He snapped his fingers expectantly, waving it up at Jack.

“Which one? There’s like…five.”

“Claw hammer.”

Jack passed it down into the hole, and the Doctor wound up and smashed it firmly into a small clear tube, which bent and crunched like a plastic bottle.

“Right. Try again.” The Doctor said, listening as footsteps trudged up the hallway and into the control room.

“FFFFfeeerrrk.” Jack choked out, just as Rose walked in.

“…Doctor?” She asked, “Doctor, what are you doing? Why’s Jack making noises like he’s choking…?”

“M’ trying to fix something. Well, I SAY fix…I mean break. I need to break something.” He grunted, and there was some banging as he struck something with a hammer; the sound was like stomping on an aluminum can with a rubber chicken stuffed inside. CRUNCHSQEEKEE!

Rose stared at the top of his head as it poked out of the maintenance hole, and attempted to pick her jaw up off the floor.

“You’re deliberately breaking something?!” She yelped, “Wh- WHY?!”

“Fffaaaaarrrrrrgggg…” Jack choked out, apropos of nothing, “Sshhhiiiiiiiiinnnnnfft-“

“Because,” The Doctor said, levering himself up out of the hole, “I’m sick of this bit.”

“What- What’s the bit, then? We’re not gonna be trapped forever, are we?”

The Doctor snorted and shook his head, grabbing a few socket wrenches from his red toolbox and hopping back down into the hole.

“No. M’ trying to break the Swear Filter.”

Rose walked over and crouched next to Jack.

“Swear Filter?” she repeated, staring at him.

“Rose,” He said, “I sound like I’m from the North. He’s from the 51st century where everyone’s less of a prude. You’re from an estate. Anything missing from our conversations? Anything that you’d think three grown adults would be peppering their speech with, in stressful situations?”

Rose’s eyes went wide.

“Hang on, the TARDIS has been…filtering our swears?!”

“Yep. It gets worse, though, because it’s not a traditional swear filter. A crude human one would just bleep the words. This one’s Gallifreyan, and therefore better. And also worse.” He shook his head, loosening a bolt and unscrewing what looked like a crumpled candy bar wrapper from a hole. “Jack, again.”

“Dddiiiiiiiiiink.” He still sounded a bit like he was choking, “Doc, please, I’m gettin’ a migraine over here. If you could hurry it up…?”

“Working on it, Jack. M’ trying to break it in such a way that it doesn’t short out the rest of the Translation Matrix.”

“So, hold on,” Rose interjected, “What- how’s the TARDIS stopping us from swearing?”

“Goes into your head,” the Doctor grunted, “you already knew that. Translates words. But not just that. See, Gallifrey…bunch of friggin’ prudes, the lot of them. No sex, no romance, none of that for Time Lords. Emotions? Pah, they’ll cloud your judgement, stop your Intellect with a capital I-“

He stopped mid-sentence, eyes widening.

“Friggin’. I said ‘friggin’’. Frick. YES! Interjections! Minced oaths! I’m so close-“

“Doctor. You were saying?” Rose folded her arms.

“Biiiiiinchhhh” Jack growled, like he had a lump of toffee in his throat. 

“Right, yes. So, Gallifrey, Time Lords, emotions…not really encouraged. So every TARDIS came with a swear filter. Goes into your head and…doesn’t really CHANGE your thoughts, per se, but helps you draft them so instead of a curse, you say something else instead.” He growled, “An’ I’m friggin’ sick of it. I’m done. I’m so, so, so, done. So. Tonight, it dies. Tonight-“

A bolt wrenched out of its hole with a CLANG, and the Doctor grinned wolfishly.

“Tonight, I cast off these fetters and turn the air _bright _**FUCKING**_ blue.”_

Everyone froze.

The Doctor clapped a hand over his mouth.

“…Ffffuck.” He tried, slowly. “Fuck.”

“BITCH!” Jack yelled triumphantly, “FUCK! SHIT! GODDAMN! BITCH! WHORE! COCKSUCKER!”

“Hell?” Rose offered.

“WASTREL! CUR! PERKELE! TABARNAK! ROGUE! HARLOT! GOD’S BLOOD!” The Doctor shouted from the bottom of the hole, dancing in excitement, “IT’S BROKEN, ROSE, IT’S FUCKING BROKEN!”

She pulled him up out of the hole, both listening to Jack excitedly cursing his way through half the alphabet, and the Doctor pulled Rose into a tight hug.

“This is fantastic,” he said, eyes shining, “I mean, obviously we shouldn’t cuss every other word, but- we CAN, now. We can! For the first time in, in… Rassilon, I’ve lost track. But I can swear now! We can all SWEAR!”

Rose shook her head, a fond smile on her face.

“I never really swore all that much to start with,” she said quietly, “I mean, besides-“

“-FUCK YOUUUU, I’M DRUNK, _FUCK YOUUUU I’M DRUNK, _**POUR MY BEER DOWN THE SINK I’VE GOT MORE IN THE TRUNK-“ **Jack was bellow-singing from somewhere down the corridor, glee on every word.

“He’s gonna spend the next three days communicating entirely in swears, isn’t he?” Rose asked, leaning on the console as the Doctor cleaned up his tools.

“Ohhhhh yes,” he replied, carefully slotting his socket wrenches back in place, “Though we probably won’t hear “cunt’ from him too much. Americans don’t get very fond of that word, even in the 51st century.”

Rose shook her head, watching her Doctor clean up his mess and slot the grating back in place.

“So, where to, Doctor?”

“Corixicalus. A planet I’ve never been to. It’s supposed to be magnificently beautiful- cliffs made of sapphires, skies the deepest red, every rock a precious gem, the plants evolved to look like crystals. Brilliant.”

“So why’ve you never been?”

“Because they consider NOT swearing,” The Doctor replied evenly, “To be more profane than anything else in the galaxy. And, you know,” he gestured at the grating, “So I couldn’t go before. But now- now I can!”

Rose chuckled and leaned on him.

“Well, Doctor,” she said, “That sounds FUCKING fantastic.”

**Author's Note:**

> Jack's singing the song "Fuck you I'm Drunk" by a band called Bondo. 
> 
> If you loved it or hated it, let me know and leave a comment!


End file.
